The Last Handful of Clover - Book 3: The Stone in the Stream

3.51 Arrival

June 16, 7:15 pm

The trip from the roadblock to Dugway seemed to take forever.

It wasn't because of the speed. The squad car actually made great time down to Tooele, and then up and over the mountains toward Dugway. The only thing that slowed them down was the sluggishness of the heavy escort vehicle that Corporal Anderson had sent, which had a top speed of about fifty miles per hour. Still, Mattie knew, she'd been lucky to have it. Several times, over the past couple hours, they had come across cars blocking their way. And rather than chancing the soft sand of the shoulder, the soldiers had simply used the big truck to push the stalled vehicle aside, like a giant battering ram.

What made the trip wear on Mattie's nerves was the constant and annoying chatter from the giant in the back seat. Nothing more than a metal grate separated her from her two passengers. So there was no way to silence him—as much as she wished she could. She tried to tune out his noise, but more than once she had considered defying God and pulling over to the side of the road, and putting a bullet between his eyes.

It was a small bit of grace that only one of the two men was still awake. She had seen the big man slip some kind of pills to the fat guy that was all bandaged up. At the border, he had told the soldier man it was something called "OxyContin," but she had no idea what that was. It seemed to calm the short, fat man, and then finally put him into a restless sleep. And from then on, at least it meant that she only had to deal with the giant's annoying voice.

If only he'd take a couple of those pills himself, she thought. Or the rest of the bottle.

To his credit, the big man was persistent. He had tried pretty much everything, and she was grateful that the back of the car was as secure as a prison cell. One time she had even felt a drop or two of blood splatter the back of her neck from the man's knuckles, as he battered them against the wire grating.

Finally, about thirty minutes from their destination, he appeared to accept that he wasn't going anywhere and calmed down. The peace in the car for those last twenty-five miles was exquisite, and Mattie had some time to look around at the empty road, and the beauty of the desert that surrounded them. It all reminded her of how this valley had looked a century and a half ago, when she had trekked into the wilderness with her parents and her sister.

Her mind was wandering, when suddenly the big man in the back seat spoke—but calmly this time. His voice surprisingly sedate and thoughtful.

"So, you're taking us to see your God, I suppose," he said, stressing the last word in an annoying way.

She was surprised to hear that he knew that much, but she shouldn't have been. He'd been spending a lot of time with the Gunderson boy, and even with Billy. It annoyed her that the heathens had been sharing her business with this repulsive beast, but there wasn't anything she could do about it. So she just glared at the man in the rear-view mirror, and he went silent.

When she looked again, a few minutes later, the galoot had pulled the bandaged man next to him into his arms, and was cradling him like a baby as he slept. It reminded her of the big sheep dog Frances had when they were girls back in Missouri. She had cuddled that stupid dog like that in front of the fireplace.

She had hated them both, even then.

Finally, they cleared the low hills and were looking out on the vast expanse of the western Utah desert. From their elevation they could see Dugway down below them, and beyond the town itself, what seemed like an infinite expanse of brown desert, with scrub oak lining the sides of the road, and a line of ancient black telephone poles marching like soldiers into the distance. She let the escort truck pull a little further ahead, so she would have an unimpeded view of all this grandeur, glowing and golden in the early evening sunlight.